SIOBHAN BARRY

THE MARKVolume III . . . No. 4 TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015 FREE-ish

Starting this spring, Carbon Engineering, a Calgary-based research company, is setting up shop in Squamish to pilot new air capture technology. Air capture is a type of carbon extraction that removes CO

2 directly from the at-

mosphere. Carbon Engineering is a final-

ist in a carbon extraction design challenge, judged by ex-Vice President Al Gore, to see who can develop the most sustainable and economically viable method of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The incen-tive for this competition is a $25 million prize. Carbon Engineering developed a design that brings atmospheric air into contact with a chemical liquid that can absorb CO

2. The result is pure CO

2 that

can then be permanently stored or sold.

The air capture facility is un-der construction in a warehouse near Nexen Beach on a site pre-viously remediated from mercury contamination. The company was drawn to Squamish by the pre-ex-isting industrial containment land. Additionally, according to the de-veloping manager, Geoff Holmes, “The fact that the town council was excited about our project was another major reason why we

chose Squamish.” The arrival of companies like Carbon Engineer-ing adds new flavour to the Squa-mish industrial landscape. “The district is really happy to have some research and development,” said council member Ted Prior via email.

Once construction is com-plete, the facility will be extracting 500 to 1,000 tons of CO

2 per year.

To put this into context, a Toyota Corolla travelling 25 km/day will emit roughly 1.4 tons of CO

2 annu-

ally.Though this yield may seem

insignificant compared to global

CO2 emissions, the main goal of

the project is to refine the process. “We have only ever done each process within the plant sepa-rately and in labs; with this pilot plant we will be performing all the steps for CO

2 capture at the same

time, proving that our system is a scalable industrial carbon cap-ture solution,” explains Holmes. In other words, this project will de-termine the viability of the tech-nology for future large-scale air capture facilities, where hundreds of thousands of tons of CO

2 will be

captured yearly. As exciting as the technology

OPINION

Views from Here

PAGE B1 & B2 ARTS & CULTURE

Smoking PitsPAGE B2 SPORTS & HEALTH

Men’s Rugby 7sPAGE C1

By IAN GREER

Foundation Survey

We’ve heard it all before: dis-cipline imbalances, impossible amounts of presentations and les-sons straight out of high school textbooks. Sure, the Foundation Program isn’t perfect, but thanks to a group of students who are put-ting together Quest’s first Founda-tion Survey, brighter days may be on the horizon.

“Yeah, when pigs fly!” you might say. Well, you might find this interesting: last weekend I happened upon three pigs with sprouts of speckled feathers stick-ing from their shoulders. “You’ve used us to make a point for the last time!” they told me, and with

Cutting Edge Air Capture Facility Moves to Squamish

OPINION

SRC VotingPAGE A2 FACES & SPACES

4 Years Later...PAGE C2

extraordinary effort managed to quiver their plumes in small circles, their front trotters lifting just off the ground. As I walked away chuck-ling, they grunted after me: “You’ll see in 2017!”

So there you have it: the Foun-dation Program will change in fall of 2017. Why so late? “We’re gath-ering data first,” one tutor told me.

Until now, tutors have never had an empirical set of student data on the Foundation Program as a whole. Any sort of student opin-ion brought into faculty meetings on the Foundation Program has been anecdotal, and thus difficult to turn into policy. Reliable survey data will change this; measuring

By ELLA PARKERmay sound, Quest physical sci-ences tutor Ian Picketts remains sceptical of its role in the climate change solution. The controver-sy lies in the fact that carbon ex-traction is classified as an adapta-tion to climate change as opposed to mitigation. “In the late eighties, adaptation became a taboo, be-cause why would we adapt when we could avoid?” explained Pick-etts. On the other hand, adapta-tion methods such as the installa-tion of giant sun-reflecting mirrors or carbon extraction were seen as crazy schemes. “But now, 30 years down the line we are get-ting to a point where some degree of geo-engineering is bordering on necessary,” says Picketts. Sim-ilarly, Carbon Engineering argues that the levels of CO

2 in our atmo-

sphere already indicate a need for carbon extraction.

Is air capture the solution? “If I can take a guess, [air capture] is going to be a lot more expen-sive and a lot less efficient than they would expect,” says Picketts. “Taking carbon dioxide out of well-mixed air, where it is at just under four parts per million, is just not very efficient,” says Picketts. That said, Picketts affirms that if the company manages to pilot the technology cheaply, he thinks the idea is worth a shot.

ELLA PARKER

Continued on page A2

By ANDREW WOOD

David Helfand Legacy Fund

If 100% of students contributed one or two dollars that thousand-or-so is a modest price tag for a potentially lucrative statistic.

At last month’s community update, David Helfand stood be-hind (but aside) as Mikail Dash-Green and Leslie De Bie, Coordi-nator of Development & Alumni Relations, unveiled a new fundrais-ing initiative called the David Hel-fand Student Legacy Fund.

“The fund’s main goal is to create a statistic of student partic-ipation in supporting Quest” says Dash-Green, trying to better com-municate the intent and incentive for participation.

The first attempt (around 18 months ago) to garner student contribution, “failed horribly” ac-cording to Helfand, who estimated about five percent participation (approximately 35 students). He blamed the failure on general lack of communication between fac-ulty and students—hence Dash-Green’s involvement with the new

The student body at Quest University may not fully appreciate

the income generating power of their loonies

and toonies

student opinions will help ground these complaints in statistics, and repeated surveying will help mea-sure the effectiveness of the pro-gram over time.

Students and faculty have puz-zled over what exactly the Founda-tion Program is meant to achieve. Answering this is a priority, ac-cording to Théa Ryan, 2015-2016’s SRC Foundation Representative. “It is necessary to re-evaluate what both the faculty and the students perceive as being the core value of the Foundation, and to what extent it is actually living up to its mis-sion,” she said.

The Foundation Survey looks to gather info from every student

who has ever attended Quest; up-per-year students and alumni are just as important as the incoming students. Complete data will allow for a better understanding of how perception changes as students move throughout and beyond their Foundation classes.

This holistic research has played a role in the survey’s devel-opment as well. Students and fac-ulty met with the survey’s creators individually to assess some of the program’s present concerns and goals for the future. From these talks came the series of questions that will appear in the survey, in hopes that the results will represent an aggregate of student concerns.

Its endorsement from Quest’s Cur-riculum Committee, headed next year by Doug Munroe, will ensure that faculty will have access to the survey data.

“I think this survey is a solid step in gathering useful, tangible student feedback on the Founda-tion,” adds Ryan. “[It] will hopefully be conducted annually in order to increase student voice in deci-sion-making when it comes to aca-demics at Quest.”

Look for the survey to be re-leased in early September!

Ian Greer co-created the Foun-dation Survey with Esther Wenger and Théa Ryan. Théa Ryan can be reached at thea.ryan@questu.ca.

By ANNA GLASER

Getting in Touch with NatureQuest’s first ever cold-water marine touch tank aquarium may change the way students learn about marine ecosystems

Continued on page B1

As far as leaving a legacy goes, fourth-year student Sterling Jones and alumnus Tanner Field have certainly set the bar high. Due to their efforts, Quest now owns a 50 gallon cold-water ma-rine touch tank aquarium full of local marine species. The tank is located in room 229 on the second floor of the academic building.

The introduction of this valu-able educational tool for students started as a group project for the Ecological Self course last May, in an assignment aimed at finding a

way to help Quest students con-nect with nature. While neither Jones nor Field were in the group that came up with the idea, they saw the educational potential and submitted a proposal to the SRC for funding.

Once the funding process was underway, Jones and Field recruit-ed Marjorie Wonham’s support. “Marjorie is really good at lighting a fire under your feet and getting things going,” said Jones. With Wonham on board, the proposal was accepted and the project was underway within months of its conception. Jones is currently the

chief caretaker of the tank, but he will pass off his duties to a work-study student come graduation later this week.

Learning how to establish and maintain a cold salt-water tank isn’t easy because there isn’t a lot of in-formation out there. “Most house-hold aquariums are fresh water and most saltwater aquariums are warm water. The Vancouver Aquarium and Bamfield Marine Research Centre have cold salt wa-ter aquariums but they’re all flow-through, which means that they’re connected to the ocean so they get a constant supply of plank-

A2 TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015THE MARKOPINION

Legacy Fund cont. fund.

“Many just thought the school was being greedy asking for mon-ey when we pay so much already. I thought it could be done again—differently—with more explanation and more heart,” explains Dash-Green, who was happy to volun-teer.

The fund’s purpose is two-fold. Firstly, the money generated from the fund will be used exclu-sively to provide students with financial need, not to grant them scholarships. Secondly, the statis-tic of participation will essentially quantify students’ belief in our in-stitution, and will be used as a tool on fundraising missions for the en-dowment fund.

As a fundraiser on the front-line, Leslie De Bie explains how students involvement “allows [her] to go back to the larger funders and show how we have all invested in Quest. It means that we are will-ing to back up what we believe in.”

In less than a month the fund has netted $4,600, including contri-butions from nine faculty members amounting to $1,860. Faculty at Quest are working for wages 30 to 60 percent below what other uni-

versities in Canada can pay, “and they are doing so because they love the educational model. They are excited about the students,” explains Helfand.

However, student participation as of April 17 was only at 56 per-cent overall with an inverse trend between academic year and rate of participation (first years at 61%, second years at 42%, third years at 35% and fourth years at only 17%).

Vice president of the Student Representative Council, fourth-year student Kyle Kirkegaard, used community update’s “For the Good of the Group” as a platform for per-sonal accountability. She stood up and promised to donate. “I implore you to do the same if you choose.” It seemed like the entire third floor meeting stood up. While Kirkeg-aard can’t say whether others will truly be more accountable, she says it worked for her.

“That day I didn’t let myself use the excuse of not having my wallet ‘up the hill.’ Directly after community update I walked to my room, took the cash I had from my wallet and put it directly in an en-velope.”

Even donating a single penny adds to the statistic, as Hel-

fand explains “the most important goal is to generate levels of partici-pation (ideally 70%-90%)”.

Dash-Green believes with all his heart that “participating by donating within your means to the school, whether it be under a dollar or over a thousand, is the smartest thing that we can do to

Building Bubbles with BlocksBy TEDDY ROSE

Yeah, blocks are cool.Any glance at a Quest pam-

phlet will lead you to believe that the block schedule, when brewed with the crushed roots of David Helfand’s beard follicles and some ginger, can alleviate boredom from traditional classrooms, transmute your intellect and cure cancer.

But like any brochure there’s always a fine print, the details of which are seldom discussed. Though many agree that the block schedule and Quest’s intimate so-cial atmosphere can be a hazard-ous concoction for the mental and physical well-being of students, it’s a very Quest-centric way of think-ing about the flaws of the block schedule. Instead, it’s valuable to consider how the block schedule impacts our involvement locally and the outcomes of our class work, though the importance of mental and physical health cannot be understated.

While the block system re-flects the fast-paced schedule of developing projects as entre-preneurs or event planners, it eschews the organic timescale necessary to form interpersonal relationships with people and or-ganizations. Nobody really dates, socializes or works on the block schedule except, well, Quest stu-dents.

I have had multiple courses where students volunteer at lo-cal organizations like Squamish Can and Squamish Rebuild. While these experiences can be both enjoyable and insightful, they usually end before students can substantially impact and build connections with the organization.

Instead, these experiences serve as tools for the self-devel-

opment of individuals and to gen-erate informed class discussions, rather than to substantially benefit the organization. It’s almost like a form of academic tourism, where students are shuttled around, in-tellectually stimulated and take more than they leave behind. Perhaps students don’t have the skills to help or transform an or-ganization, but that experience is valuable in and of itself.

It’s also worth considering how these interactions look from the organization’s perspective.

Imagine running a social en-terprise, charitable foundation or start-up company and a couple university students pop by once or twice a block for two hours, only to disappear to an elusive hill-top campus when the next block comes around. Many of these or-ganizations would love student in-volvement, but the block schedule systematically precludes the ben-efits of long-term commitments. To be frank, we don’t get much done, and it makes us look flakey.

I have seen too many poten-tially impactful class projects go to waste simply because students are soon thrown into the world of a new block. While we can argue that it’s up to the student to con-tinue their final project outside of class, they are fighting an up-stream systemic battle that pre-vents continuity of engagement.

Can you imagine having a whole extra month, under the mentorship of a tutor and the feedback of classmates, to actually carry out that beautiful and real-istic idea you developed in class?

Why not offer more dou-ble-block courses, where students take classes and intern simultane-ously for two consecutive months with the same tutor? Or perhaps

a theoretical course followed by an applied opportunity and homestay in Vancouver? Or what if we took two classes at a time for two months, where you alternate classes every day? Could Quest students manage focusing on more than one subject at a time?

The attempts at address-ing these issues using the block schedule have had a number of flaws.

In theory Experiential Learn-ing blocks get students out of the bubble and impacting the greater world, but why allot a single cred-it towards that experience rather than weave the principles of Ex-periential Learning into regular courses? Theme stream was suc-cessful at keeping people thinking about what Truth or the Self is, but it failed to take advantage of continuity of courses by having students do things outside of a classroom.

I want to be clear that this is not a personal critique of any specific Quest tutors, students or courses. Instead, this is an at-tempt to highlight a systemic issue with our university. While I praise the many bottom-up, student or teacher led initiatives to involve Quest students with Squamish, a top-down approach might be more effective at changing our practices for the benefit of the rest.

So next time someone says, “Our education isn’t practical” or “Quest students are too self-ab-sorbed to connect with Squa-mish”, maybe it’s not because our teachers are too academic or our students are too indolent, but be-cause our present academic mod-el frustrates the many attempts to change those perceptions and realities.

By ROSS DENNY-JILES

SRC Closed Voting

Last month, the student body elected the ministers who will join the new executive team in running the SRC next year. The majority of candidates this year stressed the need to engage the student body and show that the SRC is there to represent them. The SRC has had remarkably poor voter-turnout re-cently: a mere 52% in the executive elections and 58% in the ministerial elections. If the SRC hopes to remain a relevant entity on campus for more than just funding purposes, it needs to make re-engaging the stu-dent body a top priority. This year, the SRC took a step in the opposite direction by making voting during meetings anonymous.

Earlier in the year, the SRC chose to switch to an online anon-ymous voting system. Previously, voting was done at the meetings by show of hand. This allowed all those present to see how ministers voted on each proposal. Chairperson of the SRC, Leif Early, said the switch was made mostly due to concerns of social pressures interfering with ministers voting in a manner that reflected their actual opinions.

Since the switch, the council has seen more dissent. Now that the voting is anonymous there are much closer votes with some pro-posals just barely passing whereas before the switch, most proposals received unanimous support.

At first glance, this may appear to be progress. Don’t be deceived. The idea that ministers need the promise of anonymity to accurately represent their constituents is dis-turbing. The fact that the student body doesn’t have access to their representatives voting records is incredibly undemocratic because there is no way for students to hold their representatives accountable.

It should go without saying that being a minister of the SRC carries certain responsibilities. One of those responsibilities must be to stand up and vote against a proposal if a min-ister doesn’t think it deserves fund-ing or support, even if their friend is putting forth the proposal. It is true that we attend a small school where ministers will almost always know the students whose propos-als they are voting on—that is not a good enough reason to close voting records.

The SRC is currently fighting a battle to remain relevant on cam-pus. They should be doing every-thing possible to engage students, not make it harder to participate in student government.

The current President of the SRC, Céline Allen, has not received any negative feedback about the switch, and so does not believe it is an issue. The problem is, with a disengaged student body, who is there to give feedback but the other ministers?

Students need to be provid-ed with as much information as possible in order to protect their democratic rights and to try and re-engage them with the political discussion on campus. Perhaps there needs to be partial anonymi-ty, in which case, I propose a hybrid system in which ministers can vote anonymously during meetings but their voting records are published in the minutes of each meeting.

Graham Streich, the SRC’s cur-rent Minister of Human Rights and next year’s SRC Vice-President, be-lieves that Ministers need to stand up for what they believe and take the responsibility to vote their minds despite social pressures. “I understand the social pressure to vote but ministers need to hold themselves to a standard,” he said.

He’s right.

Why it needs to open

By ANDREW WOOD secure our own future and the fu-ture of the school we love.”

There are intrinsic and extrin-sic motivations to donating.

While turnout has been dra-matically more successful than last year, Mikail reminded everyone at the end of his community update speech that every seven students

raise that statistic by 1% and he believes that “students will partic-ipate if they understand that the two options are our degrees being worthless, or Quest continuing to grow. It is not hard to imagine that our degrees will continue to appre-ciate in value for years and years after we’ve earned them.”

MIKAIL DASH-GREEN

THE MARK OPINIONTUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015 B1

By GRAEME STEWART-WILSON

It’s difficult to conceptualize the inordinate effectiveness with which time continues despite the stress of a given moment. And until you look back and think, “I can’t possibly imagine it having happened any other way,” seeing clear paths to achieve the goals most important to you is almost impossible. So, naturally, preparing for major challenges is an unspecif-ic, multivariate process for which the correct method is anyone’s guess—but mostly just yours.

I want to say two short things about challenge. First, my experi-ence with challenges at Quest has been extremely taxing in the best possible sense. Deep in the most difficult of these challenges, I felt what I’d call “absolutely forlorn.” This is the realization that not only does the end seem too distant to reach, you can’t even imagine what

Don’t Challenge Your Leaps of Faith

A Year in Re[View from Here]

By ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI that end would be, as if you looked directly into the sun with your mind’s eye. You can’t turn around because that would waste the part of your soul you gave to get this far, but you feel like you’ll lacerate your already throbbing back if you leap once more into the breach. Thinking affectionately of being in prison, where you could sit around daydreaming, you collapse.

These have been the most painful and most liberating mo-ments of any challenge meaningful enough to break my will and crum-ple my self-confidence. When striv-ing becomes so excruciating that you’re ready to resign and walk away from something that’s essen-tially your child, you realize that it really doesn’t matter what you do. You’re not obliged to do anything. You may stop if that makes you feel good; you may finish a substan-dard product half-heartedly, and finally get some sleep. Once you

recognize that you’ve got nothing to lose, it’s been my experience that you somehow continue, weak yet persistent, and launch back into the physical and mental pain of problem solving. Shouldering the full weight of your efforts, and with no guarantee of success, you keep going, not to fulfill some crite-rion, but because you want to.

The second thing that I want to say about challenge is that no mat-ter how much I premeditate, my process has always been defined by split-second decisions. I decid-ed to come to Quest—and to go to university at all—in a split-sec-ond while walking down the wharf in Catania, Sicily. Sure, I’d thought about what it would mean to go to school on the other side of Canada before that moment, and I reflected on how this would change my life for months after. But I made the ac-tual decision to spend four years tackling a degree in a discrete mo-

I was standing in the lavish re-ception hall about an hour outside of Kampala, Uganda, in my stained, ripped Dancing Bear t-shirt, when a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa asked what PhD program I was in. Muttering something about being a research assistant, and that my luggage was lost on the way to the hotel, I escaped to the bar to refill my glass of wine.

How I ended up there is a sto-ry that began in my last year at Quest. In April 2014 I was asked to write a first draft of the report that was to be launched at the tenth annual meeting of African Science Academies in November. After an eight-month process that included multiple drafts, peer-review, and a planning meeting in Bellagio, It-aly, I finished an 84-page report on country ownership of devel-opment goals. In November, I was invited to the conference to write a summary of the proceedings and to participate in some of the panel discussions.

After spending almost a year as lead technical writer, I knew the material inside and out. But around all these professors, diplomats, government officials and develop-ment consultants I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. All I could seem to think was, “How did I man-age to sneak my way in here?”

In the late ‘70s two psychology researchers, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, coined the term “Imposter Syndrome” to describe the intense and persistent feeling of intellectual fraudulence, despite any external signs of success. Since then, many people from graduate students to celebrities have de-scribed feeling like their success has come more from their charm than their abilities, and that they’ve just tricked everyone into thinking they’re talented.

People just starting their ca-reers are most likely to experience this phenomenon. “The first prob-lem with any kind of even limited success is the unshakeable convic-

tion that you’re getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you” said author Neil Gaiman, in his com-mencement speech to Philadel-phia’s University of the Arts gradu-ating class of 2012.

But it doesn’t necessarily go away, even after a lifetime of awards and accolades. On his deathbed, a month before passing, Einstein wrote to his long-time confidant Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, “the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”

So maybe I’m a fraud, but at least I’m in good company.

Last month, I was asked to get on board with a journalism project for Discourse Media, a company co-founded by occasional Quest tutor Erin Millar, to report on the Transit and Transportation Plebi-scite currently underway in Metro Vancouver. Excited to be writing again, I eagerly took the job and showed up at their office in Gas-town.

About a week later, I was star-ing at the cursor blinking madly away on a blank word document. I didn’t have a clue how to be-

ment, walking by the Ionian Sea, when I said to my mother on the phone, “Nah, I think I’ll defer and see how things pan out—wait, you know what? I’ll just go.”

In my first semester at Quest in the spring of 2011, a fellow stu-dent asked if I wanted to perform a spoken word poem with her in the first Cabaret, Révolution! I said I’d love to, but that I was afraid to perform a memorized piece for a huge audience. She said, “that makes sense. I guess the question is, do you want to do something that scares you?” I thought about it for a full 30 seconds, but decid-ed that I did in a split-second. And stuck with it.

Look at it this way. The worst things that came from these types of decisions were that I hardly slept some weeks, I got sick, my body severely ached, and I got scared a lot because I didn’t know how I’d end up. The best things

A soon-to-be graduate’s take on hard things

gin writing a journalistic article. It seemed like my nightmare was coming true. Somehow I’d swin-dled my way through university and my work with the African Academies. But now I was finally going to be discovered as the fraud I am when I handed in an incom-plete or broken draft of the article I had been tasked with writing.

In the end I vomited some words onto the page, edited a bit, asked for a lot of help along the way, and as far as I can tell every-one was happy with the result. Bullet dodged. For now, it looks like they’ll let me keep faking my way through some more articles.

Despite our best laid plans, I think we’ll always feel underpre-pared for what’s in front of us. My friend Michael Powell, a fourth-year student graduating this year, drove that point home for me one eve-ning as we sat sipping beers over my kitchen table. “Now that I’ve finished my keystone, I finally feel ready to start my Quest educa-tion,” he said. I knew exactly how he felt.

If I could start my education over, there are many things I would do differently. For one, I would have chosen courses that actually tied

into my final Question. Or I would have used my experiential learning to get job experience in journalism or in development, the fields I have actually ended up working in. But the reality is that I never could have laid out the path that would take me to Kampala, or that would let me publish articles about tran-sit in Vancouver.

It’s often more valuable to be able to look back and build the narrative that brought you to the present moment, than to stick to any plans you may have for the future.

As a kid, one of my favourite cartoons was Calvin and Hobbes. In one panel, Calvin’s dad sits up late at night and says to his wife, “I don’t think I’d have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I’d known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.” Looking back on my first year out of Quest, if I’ve learned anything it’s to be a little more secure ad-libbing my future. It’s the times you feel totally out of your depth, or like you’ve swin-dled your way in, that are the most productive. Learning and progress happen in those spaces.

So get out there and fake it, because everyone else does.

By ANNA GLASER

Touch Tank cont.

ton,” Jones explained. In order to simulate an actual marine environ-ment in the touch tank, the supply of plankton must be replenished twice a week.

Bolstering biodiversity in the tank is also difficult. While you can collect plankton from provincial parks like Porteau Cove, finding collection sites for other species is more difficult. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has strict collection policies that limit the number of species one can col-lect at a time from any given site. There are also regulations in place that dictate which species are eligi-ble for collection.

The tank’s main draw is the variety of subtidal organisms. While on the surface the tank may seem a little sparsely inhabited, Jones made it clear that the tank is well populated. Since the tank is not full of typically eye-catching organisms, it is easy to assume the tank is lacking in specimens. “It’s tough not having everyone appre-ciate your work,” said Jones, “but in the end you’re the one that has to be happy with it. I’m incredibly happy to have taken on this proj-ect.”

“In the future, I see this as a valuable educational tool,” said Jones, “Students from the Low-er Mainland and Coast Mountain Academy can come check it out.” Jones imagines the tank being used in both biology and anatomy classes as an instructional tool for behavioural experiments and dis-sections. “The possibilities are end-less,” said Jones.

An alumnus looks back on the lessons learned in his first year post-Quest

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

that came from them were that I was able to do lots of things that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing before coming here, like perform-ing in Cabarets, writing for news-papers and art magazines, giving presentations to entire classes, and writing a Keystone. If it weren’t for making the split-second decisions to put my best efforts into extreme-ly arduous undertakings—if not with confidence, at least with re-solve—and for really pushing the limits of my willpower for the sake of the experience itself, I wouldn’t have met many challenges at Quest.

I surely don’t discount the many and varied possible relation-ships with challenge; figuring out which way of thinking about chal-lenges is most supportive for you is essential because, when you get down to brass tacks, you’re your own biggest supporter.

MARIS WINTERS

B2 TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015THE MARKARTS & CULTURE

Dancing Bear-foot Under the Sun

By ELLY GRANT

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a music festival, so of course I was excited to attend this year’s Dancing Bear festival to see what it was all about. I didn’t real-ly know what to expect, except to hear some bands that I had nev-er really heard of before and the possibility of getting some moves in on the dancefl—I mean, grass. As a whole, I was refreshingly blown away by what our student co-or-dinators and volunteers had put together.

Many students were super impressed with the set-up of the festival. The vendor tables were di-verse and “much better organized this year,” as noted by fourth-year student Maia Watkins. The ham-mocks were a great break from the festivities and gave students a place to literally hang out. The lawn was a hot-spot as well; I saw many students napping, giving each other impromptu sharpie tattoos while listening to the acts, and even witnessed some spoon-ing action.

Although the food truck scheduling didn’t go as planned, I heard some glowing reviews about the Greek food truck. Tay Powrie had some choice words about his gyro, describing it as “easily trans-portable” and having “super ten-der lamb.” The caf had some nice options as well. I was particularly a big fan of the vegetarian perogies.

The beer garden, as usual, was a big hit. Fellow beer-drinker

Sam Conard and I decided that the cups were not only aesthetically pleasing, but a great way to reduce waste and add to your kitchen cup collection.

The music line-up was well balanced between Quest students and local talent. There was a de-cent amount of folk or indie rock music which contributed to the mellowness of the afternoon, and later in the evening saw the more lively bands perform. One student exclaimed: “I had never heard any-thing like Chester Watson before, [he was] hands down the best part.” I can say that WMN STUDIES was one of my favourite acts and really gave me a chance to get my dancing in.

The festival also seemed to appeal to the outside community.James Blumhagen, Dancing Bear’s host and coordinator, explained that he sold all 200 tickets made available for the outside commu-nity. A couple of upper-year stu-dents I spoke to told me that, com-pared to last year, the turnout was much bigger, especially in terms of community outreach. Andrea Aylesworth, a first-year student, described it as “a refreshing pop in the Quest bubble,.” which I think is a perfect way to put it!

Dancing Bear 2015 proved to be a highlight of my year, as I hope it was for many other students and community members. For now, I’ll look forward to next year’s festiv-ities and hope that blistered feet from shoeless dancing and sun-burns are healed by then.

By ZUBER SINGH

Or, loosely translated, Vista de AquiBy MICHAELA SLINGER

View From Here

I thought about starting this article with something slightly snarky, like how I think Granada has the most dog shit per square foot of sidewalk, how I’m going through vegetable withdrawal, or how uncomfortable I feel watching tourists use selfie sticks. However, I soon decided against this tactic (or did I?) as it seemed to undermine the incredible people I’ve met, and the number of times words have failed me when exploring Granada and Albufeira.

Consider Mary Carmen, our classroom teacher at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. She’s a vi-vacious, 57-year-old woman who speaks refreshingly slow Spanish, and gets happily sidetracked from grammar and verb conjugations by answering questions on Grana-da’s history, unemployment rates, culture, and political landscape. When she found out that the only two students in her class were dat-ing and living together in Granada, her face wrinkled as she leaned forward to us and whispered in accented English: “I’m going to kill you!” We told Mary Carmen that we would practice our speaking at home; she scoffed, exclaimed “Mentira!” and mimed her nose growing long like Pinocchio’s.

Then there’s Cristobal, our first Airbnb host in Torremolinos. I had arranged to meet him outside the airport, but soon realized that the airport had many “outsides”—specifications are important when you don’t have a cell phone plan—and that I’m hopeless at un-derstanding accents under stress (after borrowing a British family and German family’s cell phones to call Cristobal, while still remain-ing lost). After an hour of frustra-tion, we finally found him in his car,

parked in a drop-off zone where he could have gotten ticketed be-cause of us. Apologies were con-tinually flowing — in true Canuck fashion — during the ride to our apartment, but Cristobal refused to accept money for the favour he had done. In fact, after leaving us at our room, he returned fifteen minutes later with a bottle of local Malaga wine as a welcoming gift.

On a fairly spontaneous trip to Albufeira, Portugal, we booked a coasteering (swimming, climb-ing, cliff jumping) excursion with a company called Coastline Algarve. Nelson, our trip leader, may have taken the first place spot on my list of incredible people. He picked us up from the train station in Lagos, and informed us that we were the only coasteer-ers of the day. Soft spoken and brilliant, Nelson began telling us how, between his Israeli wife and himself, the family spoke five languages, how he had studied in the UK for three years taking a marine sport science course, and the tension between his small com-munity and ecotourism. We drove along a narrow dirt road that wove through the flowery hillside along the Gulf of Cádiz, finally parking the

van on the edge of a cliff overlook-ing the ocean.

After suiting up, Nelson began leading us on what was one of the most unbelievable experiences I’ve had in my life. He taught us about Portuguese biodiversity (the pur-ple wild thyme is great for cooking, the bright magenta flower is inva-sive from South Africa), demon-strated his knowledge of the water and weather (predicting the timing of swells and informing us about how different winds and currents shape the ocean’s behaviour), and remained supportive and calming throughout our adventure. We scrambled through unbelievable caves, swam in the bluest water, and climbed to jumping points that got progressively higher. After Nel-son had demonstrated the highest jump of the excursion (10m, which looked like 100m to me), I took a look around at the infinite coastline with its rugged rocks, greenery, and salty sea. What am I doing? I thought to myself. But then again, this trip has done nothing if not constantly yanked me outside my familiar bubble, my suburban-girl comfort zone. So I counted down, and I jumped.

Note: This is not the 10m cliff, it’s around 2m from when we began. No judgement allowed.

SIOBHAN BARRY

SIOBHAN BARRY

MICHAELA SLINGER

Among the most overlooked havens of socialization are surely the three smoking pits on campus. Isolated by force of habit, they’ve been left to their own devices - I’m not talking about lighters here; I’m talking about people. With people, culture is bound to follow. Ever wondered about the indistinct chatter and dim orange dots danc-ing in the dark distance? Well, this is the first in an upcoming series of accounts that aims to bring this otherwise isolated culture to the rest of the campus.

The all too familiar scent that accompanies many a village resident on zer way back home is only further prevalent on a Fri-day. In the distance, white plumes rise from the scarlet tips of paper sticks. Situated beside a quaint Japanese garden-esque stepping course (for lack of a better term,) the smoking pit lays by the cross-roads between South Village, the stairway to North and the path that leads into the forest, which remains ever popular amongst the student body. The South Village smoking pit (although it belongs equally to its North Village users) remains one of the most popular social haunts outside of the resi-

dences. Its location is nothing less than strategic. In the words of an anonymous frequenter, “it’s pretty zen, the vibe here.”

It would seem that the vibe of the place has rubbed off on its patrons as well. Amongst the com-munity, there is a fume of generos-ity and sharing. As smoker Louis Desfosses put it, “This is the place, definitely, if you want a cigarette and you see someone coming you can for sure get a cig off them. But there is a general culture of gener-ously sharing tobacco and that’s very international.” He shifted the bottle caps hidden amidst the peb-bles with his foot as he continued: “Drinking exacerbates generosity, which is reflected in the smoking culture. I could see that clearly when I was working in a bar; the same thing happens here.”

Not everyone thinks every-one in the smoke pit is generous, however. “There’s these vultures/moochers that’ll appear out of nowhere when you’re just try-ing to take a second for yourself,” huffed pit-patron Jack Zaro when interviewed on Facebook. “Basi-cally they bum a smoke off of you, and then while you’re both smok-ing, they just make horrible small talk with you...it’s just the worst.”

His frustration was evident in his frown-emoticon; he had not had a cigarette for over two weeks.

Although tobacco sharing cul-ture is fairly universal, the South Village smoke pit is unique in a number of ways. “It’s always the same people, and there’s a cultural divide between cigarette smokers and non-cigarette smokers,” hinted an anonymous smoker. Another anonymous smoker hinted at the population diversity, saying “many come here because it’s a stoned throw away from home.” He re-peatedly lifted his eyebrows in an indicative fashion, and concluded, “it’s also a great place to not do homework. It’s easy to procrasti-nate here.”

Yet, this is not the only smok-ing pit on campus; “The south smoke pit does not have a distinct culture for cigarettes. I rarely see one here. The one by Red Tusk and Ossa has more of a culture there. It’s the same with the aca-demic building, though there it’s far more serious” explained an anonymous smoker. Clearly, a sim-ple mention of these other cultures would not do them justice; these would require their own investiga-tion… (To be continued)

In the Pits About Smoking: Part 1

THE MARK THE MARKC1TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015 SPORTS & HEALTH

First Hosted Tournament and Athletic Banquet Invite

By AYLA RAABIS & MAYA GREENBERG

By ROSS DENNY-JILES

Men’s Rugby 7s Fight for Legitimacy

Establishing a new sports program at Quest isn’t easy. That’s a reality that the Men’s Rugby 7s team is all too familiar with. At a school facing financial hardship, convincing the administration that a program is here to stay and needs funding is no small task. The men’s rugby team came two steps closer this month: they hosted their first tournament and, despite some protest, were invited to the Quest Athletic Banquet.

On Saturday April 4, the men’s rugby team invited the Doug-las College Royals and the local Squamish team, The Axemen, up to Quest for an exhibition tour-nament. Each team played each other twice before the Axemen and the Royals advanced to the final; Douglas College eventually won the tournament with a 29-27 victory.

The Kermodes lost their four games, but looked stronger as the day progressed. It was the first time many of the players on the squad had played together at game-level intensity. Michael Luba, Quest Alumnus and acting coach of the new team, commen-teed on the team’s losses, stating,

“any team that is just starting to get their feet off the ground is going to go through a period of development before being able to compete at a high level.” Despite the poor score-sheet, the team is optimistic about the future. With a new group of core players, they hope to continue to build on the foundation they have laid this year with more tournaments and a new coaching hire for next sea-son.

Their pursuit of recogni-tion took another step forward on April 10 when the team was invited to Quest’s Athletic Ban-quet, which celebrates the accom-

A Healthy Dose Shifting into Summer: How to Stay Healthy

Through Stress and Change

As the spring semester comes to a close, Questies are on the move, transitioning to other roles to keep them occupied over the summer months. Whether you are going back home, working a high intensity job like tree planting, or travelling around the world—tran-sitions can be hard. Dealing with big changes can be made easier in a few ways including ample plan-ning, having a good support sys-tem, and making time for self care.

Planning ahead may seem boring, but the stress mini-mized by a smooth move out or uncomplicated travels is not to be ignored. Avoid limiting yourself by being too rigid but start early and keep yourself on track with lists or reminders. It may not seem like much but even a box or bus ticket that you deal with before your last day on campus can be a load off.

Mentally plan for your tran-sition as well. Having some idea of what your next day, week or month will look like can make a world of difference.

While a break from living on campus may be just what you need, it can be difficult to separate from friends for the summer. Make sure you have an open dialogue with your friends about how you can stay in touch with them over

the summer. Do you like texting? Skype calls? Having these little things worked out can ease you into long distance friendship with-out any hiccups and ensure that if you do experience stress as you settle into the summer, you have people to talk to. Also remember to ask for help if you need it; reach-ing out can be difficult but having a support system that you can lean on is invaluable.

Self care as a concept gets thrown around a lot, but what does it mean to make time for self care? Self care refers to anything one does to take care of their phys-ical or mental health. This will be different for everyone, but the key aspects include making sure you are eating and sleeping well, tak-ing time to destress, and seeking out supportive social situations. It can be a challenge, but ensuring that you look after your physical and mental health is imperative for coping with change and settling into new surroundings. Whether your summer is a whirlwind or a walk in the park don’t neglect the routines and good habits you’ve developed over the year.

No matter what you are doing this summer, remember to look after yourself. Change is a beautiful thing and shifting into summer should be painless and exciting. Have a lovely break!

KENDRICK DETTMERS

plishments of student-athletes on and off the field of play. It was the first time Quest has invited a team besides the two soccer and basketball teams to the event. While some student-athletes on the more established sports teams complained about the rugby team’s attendance, they seemed to be the minority. Overall, the event was a very positive experience, and the rugby team expressed gratitude for being included.

Though they certainly have a long way to go, the Men’s Rugby 7s Team is well on its way to be-coming a legitimate Quest athlet-ics team.

KENDRICK DETTMERS

Cabaret Through a CameraBy KENDRICK DETTMERS

Comic

THE MARKFACES & SPACES TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015C2

4 Years Later...What advice would you give to

your first year self?

To see more pictures and read the interviews, visit questreflections.wordpress.com

By ANNA GERKE

The MarkEditors-in-ChiefCALEAH DEAN &

ZACHARY KERSHMAN

News Editors ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI & JEANNIE RAKAMNUAYKIT

Opinion EditorNEDER GATMON-SEGAL

Arts & Culture EditorLONNIE WAKE

Sports & Health EditorKEVIN BERNA

Graphics EditorSIOBHAN BARRY

Production ManagerR. MARIS WINTERS

Production AssistantMORGAN HILLIS

Media GuruJORDAN ROSS

Editors-at-LargeTARI AJADI &

JONATHAN VON OFENHEIM